Miller: Lakers need a fairy tale, but don't get it

April 26, 2013

Updated Aug. 21, 2013 1:17 p.m.

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The Lakers' bench - Dwight Howard, Devin Ebanks, Metta World Peace, Pau Gasol and Robert Sacre - doesn't look to happy during the team's 120-89 loss to the San Antonio Spurs in Game 3 on Friday night. KEVIN SULLIVAN, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

The Lakers' bench - Dwight Howard, Devin Ebanks, Metta World Peace, Pau Gasol and Robert Sacre - doesn't look to happy during the team's 120-89 loss to the San Antonio Spurs in Game 3 on Friday night. KEVIN SULLIVAN, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

LOS ANGELES – It was slightly more than an hour before tipoff Friday.

The Lakers already had confirmed that Steve Nash wouldn't play, that Jodie Meeks' injured ankle now included a ligament tear and that Metta World Peace was battling a cyst in his leg unrelated to the surgically repaired knee in the same leg.

It was then that Coach Mike D'Antoni officially addressed his starting backcourt for Game 3 against the Spurs, a backcourt that would include a player who, before becoming a Laker, had been a Viper.

There was no word as to whether, as a member of the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, Andrew Goudelock wore a leather jacket, greased back his hair and normally spent his Friday nights at Inspiration Point.

Then D'Antoni said, "As long as we're fighting and everybody's trying to do it the right way and everybody's hugging and kissing ... that's how we're going to do it."

Hugging and kissing? Maybe Staples Center was the new Inspiration Point!

Kiss that notion goodbye. Kiss the Lakers goodbye, too.

San Antonio, 120-89. Spurs, three games to none. This was the Lakers' worst home loss in their extensive playoff history.

Winning Friday – without Nash, Meeks, Steve Blake and a shooting guard named Kobe Bryant – was going to require something of a fairy tale.

It was encouraging then that the Lakers started a player whose name sounds an awful lot like "Goldilocks." Alas, Goudelock and the Three Spurs never happened.

The young guard the Lakers cut in training camp did, rather incredibly, lead them in scoring much of the night and finish with 20 points.

But the Spurs are not the Sioux Falls Skyforce and this isn't the D-League.

And, of course, the Lakers aren't the Lakers. They're only what's left of the Lakers.

The situation has reached a point where they might even be willing to reacquire another of their former guards, like, for example, Smush Parker. Imagine what Bryant would tweet then. His overworked thumbs might file for divorce.

D'Antoni called the Lakers' avalanche of injuries "a little bit over the top," noting that teams "usually lose one guy and that's a disaster."

And this was before Jeffrey Osborne made his traditional first home playoff game appearance to sing the national anthem and, as he walked off the court, ruptured his spleen.

Bryant hobbled through the Lakers' locker room on crutches twice before the game but didn't stop to address the media. We're not completely sure what we would have asked the Black and Blue Mamba, but a question about his fandom certainly would have been included.

There was a lot said before and after this game in an attempt to provide enlightenment. No quote, however, better captured where these teams are at the moment than the one uttered in the middle of the second quarter by public address announcer Lawrence Tanner.

If the Lakers were going to win this game, they were going to have to play defense. The Spurs scored 65 points in the second half and shot 61.2 percent overall.

If the Lakers were going to win this game, they were going to need the full participation of Dwight Howard. Before eight minutes had expired, Howard's foul trouble already had begun.

If the Lakers were going to win this game, they were going to have to hit shots from the perimeter. They missed their first seven 3-point tries and finished 4 for 20.

D'Antoni continued to emphasize that the Lakers would go inside, that they'd ride the obvious advantage Howard and Pau Gasol gives them. "We've still got two big-time All-Stars out there," he explained.

Then the game started and the Spurs outscored the Lakers in the paint, 56-50, and outrebounded them, 49-35.

Sure, it would have taken a fairy tale for the Lakers to win Friday, and the framework actually was there.

Goudelock started at guard with Darius Morris, another second-year player no one expected to be anywhere near this series when it began.

Asked who would handle the ball the most among the two relative unknowns, D'Antoni said, "Darius will ... just because he knows the plays. It's a lot better when you hold up '1' and actually run it."

The coach was joking, but he wasn't kidding. Before his recent return, Goudelock was last here during camp, when the Lakers were being coached by Mike Brown and running a disaster called the Princeton offense.

What they're running now looks like a bit of a disaster, too, but their relentless string of broken bodies hasn't left the Lakers with many options.

And now they're running out of time.

Given the Lakers' physical state, we haven't learned much about them and their future during this one-way series.

But we do know this much for certain:

When it comes to snakes, the Black Mamba is much more deadly than the Gold Viper, even on the Viper's magical night.

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